


Enigma

by doublejoint



Category: One Piece
Genre: Established Relationship, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-04
Updated: 2021-03-04
Packaged: 2021-03-16 21:41:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,046
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29831319
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/doublejoint/pseuds/doublejoint
Summary: Drake is impossible to read. Hawkins looks for patterns anyway.
Relationships: Basil Hawkins/X Drake
Kudos: 15





	Enigma

**Author's Note:**

> set at some nebulous point during the timeskip

It’s like touching a pressure point, or tapping a structure built of cards with just enough force to crumple it immediately, collapse it into a messy pile. To the untrained eye, the things that make Drake raise his guard and unsheathe his claws might seem a strange collection, with no pattern whatsoever, leading to an assumption of mood or general touchiness. To someone more invested, the pattern would be, perhaps, there, but they’d get it wrong. They’d see something where it isn’t, fall for an illusion created by their own mind. Hawkins knows all about that; the foundations of magic require only a little skill, just enough persuasion to make people see and believe the things they are inclined to, look for the patterns that aren’t there.

Knowing that there is a pattern, and being able to sift through the obvious answers and discard them, does not always leave you with the right answer, the odd card out, the rabbit under the hat’s false bottom. It’s like listening to a language he doesn’t speak and trying to make out where the words and clauses break apart with nothing to guide him as his ears stumble along. Drake is an anomaly, a language that utilizes patterns Hawkins doesn’t know to listen for, impossible to figure out within his frame of reference. That’s what makes Drake so fascinating, though, reading his cards and seeing something different every time, seeing the contradictions pop out in real time, the way he struts in leather with his feet leaving dents in the ground and yet folds into himself when Hawkins asks a particular question.

Such as, are you really a pirate?

As a known former Marine officer, he ought to be prepared to answer this, especially if he really isn’t a pirate. But then, perhaps this is a double-bluff; perhaps he wants to be seen as a pretender—but, no, does he really have it in him? What is the advantage to that?

“What do you mean?” Drake asks, and there again are the claws, the latest reading of the cards falling into place, as expected. 

“I mean, are you a pirate?” Hawkins repeats, letting contempt seep into his tone, letting Drake read what he wants to from it.

Drake’s mouth flattens, as if he thinks Hawkins is insinuating he lacks comprehension. Again, as expected, but the obvious reason as to why expectations are not the final word is that there is room for them not to match up completely. People take the bait they’re offered, but they read in it the meaning they wish to see. And yet, still, though this much is predictable, no pattern has emerged. It’s like a tangle of straw that appears, from far away, to be an intricate design; up close it’s clear that it was just the angle of the light, and something in the brain filling the gaps. 

“What would you do if I said I wasn’t?” says Drake.

“That depends on whether I believe you or not,” says Hawkins.

“Why wouldn’t you?”

“Why would I?”

His eyes narrow behind the mask, his mouth tightening and pinching like a cloth gathered between the fingers. He doesn’t answer at all, in the end. A wise choice.

* * *

If you pull a ribbon the wrong way, it tightens. If you pull it the right way, the knot unravels gently, neatly. (Though for different purposes, wrong is right; right is wrong.) In Drake’s case, it’s more a ball of leather yarn than a ribbon, the end buried somewhere—perhaps Hawkins ought to ask Faust, even if it will earn nothing more than a swipe of claws he’ll have to dodge and a remark from Faust that he doesn’t do that anymore (which would be a complete lie, regardless). It’s an amusing thought, and apparently that much shows on Hawkins’s face. Drake, eyes half-shut, props himself up on his elbow, the coverlet falling from his chest somewhat, exposing him to his sternum like he’s treading in deep water. 

“What are you thinking about?”

Drake’s voice is clogged with sleep, as if said through a mouth half-full. 

“Whether I should give Faust a ball of yarn or not.”

“Faust is your cat friend?”

There’s something about the phrasing that is even more amusing.

“Yes,” Hawkins says. “My cat friend.”

Drake sighs and it turns into a yawn. Hawkins won’t tell him to go back to sleep; whether he wants to (and whether he actually does) is his business.

“When are you leaving?” Drake says.

He doesn’t mean in the morning morning, from this room on his ship. About some things, Drake is clear in meaning and intent; he always has been. 

“When the winds are fair,” says Hawkins.

(It seems likely in the next week. Waiting too long will cause their fortunes to drag, will enmesh them on this land when they are not meant to be here. But that’s more information than Drake needs to know. He won’t give chase even if he were to know, though--would Hawkins really mind? It might be nice to see him so open, but it might be the opposite.)

“We’ll see each other again soon.”

It’s not a promise, nor is it a desperate leap to hold onto this. It’s just obvious, like sailing straight into lightning.

“Did you read it in the cards?”

“Perhaps,” says Hawkins.

Drake rolls over, facing Hawkins fully, sweeping his hair off his face. Like that, he looks suddenly very much like the Marine officer he at least nominally no longer is, and then his hair falls forward again and he does not. He doesn’t look like a pirate either, nor an ordinary civilian. He is like looking at a puzzle, and realizing the pieces are each made of other pieces that you’d stuck together incorrectly. 

“Hawkins—” Drake starts, and then cuts himself off.

Hawkins waits. Saying someone’s name holds magical significance, if you want it to. That is almost certainly not why Drake says it, confirmed as the silence deepens and he makes no further move. 

“Never mind.”

The boat creaks. Drake’s bare hand is in a loose fist on top of the coverlet. His fingers are cold to the touch; they curl tighter around Hawkins’s hand, as any creature turns to something slightly warm. 

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading!


End file.
